its ridiculous that wales calls up bale. i know they're close to a euro spot, but to fly a guy who's just been injured for national camp and then play him, is very selfish...considering we are footing all the medical bills, not to talk of wages

for the first time, i dont feel any remorse for a country for taking our player.Wales are on course for a historic qualification and they know they would have been nowhere close if it wasnt for Bale.They need him. He needs this match too. It would make him a national Hero.

Superstars of a certain magnitude rarely ever age gracefully... the bigger the ego, the worse it is. So it's just something we will need to deal with until CR leaves. Raul went through the same thing and we quickly shipped him out. Iker was more painful. I hope we do it sooner like with Raul so that there's dignity in it.

CR isn't a winger or wing striker any longer and he's not a CF. He's basically Wayne Rooney except he's far more fit and crushes the smaller opponents still

As far as our issue this game... pretty simple. We lost Carvajal and became exposed with Arbeloa. That cost us the game.

I also feel the both Kroos and Isco have fallen off significantly from their level of last season which doesn't help.

I just hope we get healthy and that Rafa adjusts. We're fine IF we fix the things that can be fixed. CR cannot so i just hope we're able to find a way to make it work. Bale is also still a work in progress that hasn't really been tested.

We are 2nd from the top of the table with only 1 point to catch up btw

@sportzcy u r right. Raul didnt hurt us half as much as Iker Casillas. Diego Lopez first of all showed us how bad casillas had become and now its all too apparent with Keylor navas. They were never going to beat him today if not for that crazy goal and inexplicable pass from Griezmaan.

Casillas had been shit for 6 yrs, I hope we dont have to put up with Ronaldo for that long.Benitez needs to find some balls and bench Ronaldo.

Some people make it feel like a team without a ronaldo cant perform but Bayern dont have a Ronaldo; they dont even have their versions of Ronaldo (Robben and Ribery) fit and they are still beasting their way past teams more than ever before.

Its just irritating seeing him do his annoying celebration when he scores against the small teams but fails to make any impact against the difficult matches.I wait for the day those stupid Zombies of his teammates would stop celebrating with him obsequiously when he scores his usual unimportant goals.

I really liked Benitez's approach of not blindly attacking Atlético. Clearly, they were surprised. His game plan would've succeeded hadn't Carvajal gotten injured. btw Carvajal, what a player!

But having said that, When you're the coach of the biggest club in history you don't just sit deep when you're just 0-1 up. You let them come to you, but you don't sit too deep. That's suicide, especially with a guy like Arbeloa playing.

His game plan limited Cristiano and as a result, 60% of our attacking power went missing.

The important thing is that we didn't lose at the Calderon. It's not a good result, but it's not bad either. Now, Rafa needs to thrash this soulless team of thugs in the return leg if he wants to gain my respect. So far he doesn't have it.

@shadexticos wrote:@sportzcyu r right. Raul didnt hurt us half as much as Iker Casillas. Diego Lopez first of all showed us how bad casillas had become and now its all too apparent with Keylor navas. They were never going to beat him today if not for that crazy goal and inexplicable pass from Griezmaan.

Casillas had been shit for 6 yrs, I hope we dont have to put up with Ronaldo for that long.Benitez needs to find some balls and bench Ronaldo.

Some people make it feel like a team without a ronaldo cant perform but Bayern dont have a Ronaldo; they dont even have their versions of Ronaldo (Robben and Ribery) fit and they are still beasting their way past teams more than ever before.

a case of convenient amnesia? its funny how the spanish media and fans have heralded raul since he left. from 04 till when he left, a large section of madrid and madrid based media wanted him out . even when he picked up his form, in the 08 and 09 seasons. the only reason the "raul selecion" movement happened was cos they hated aragones more. he had few strong followers but anytime we were linked to a striker we didn't get, or any time he was in the line up, people would say "he used politics to cancel the deal" or "coaches were scared of him"....similar to how iker became the "mole" cos mourinho implied it. they would write stories and have radio shows saying things like raul kicked ronaldo, owen , anelka, baptista, robinho and every striker at real madrid not named morientes out of the club and fans bought it hook line and sinker

as for iker being crap for 6 years, he became crap in mou's last season. the season before, he was excellent and pulled us back in the pk shootout against bayern till ramos thought the goal post was in orbit. in a few years time, i'm sure iker would be given his "saint hood" back. fact is, a lot of fans supported the exit of most of our captains, and only in hindsight praise them ....happened with hierro too, his was a bit quick, but he received loads of criticisms after the juve loss, and people called for raul to take over, the same way they called for iker to take over...sergio ramos is a maniac, and had that contract issue so he wasn't heralded

The difference between our best players and worst players was too huge. Some of them had 10/10 performances whille other half had below 4 performances. Benitez fked up with his entire second half changes. He sat too deep and so we were unable to counter. They just fouled us down at dangerous breaks.Ronaldo not getting the ball much turned into a calamity due to selfishness, lack of footballing brain and overall average passing. Benitez's tactics pushed our forwards too far away from the goal. His decision to bring bale instead of Benzema was idiotic as he gave no defensive contribution at all. Vasquez would have been a better option. Kroos as one of the forward CMs does not work as he doesn't have the mobility to track back nor have the dribbling or vision to affect the play in final third... Like I said before match Kovacic was much better suited for that role. Casemiro with a mooooonster game.. His long passing was a joy to watch. He recovered 20 balls from atletico and was a huge aerial preference as well. Gem we have here.Modric with another performance. How consistent and how many fouls did thugleti use on him? The match was there for taking but idiotic tactics and bs subs saw 2 points slipped through our fingers.

i've always said i'm not a fan of having two center mids, i like one destroyer partnered with modric. and casemiro can play that role. he should be rotated every now and again with kroos, that way kroos can also have some rest. when he gets tired, even i feel it while i'm watching the game. reminiscent of a tired ozil. it will also ensure modric doesn't get over-burdened, cos its like he's been playing both his role as well as kroos' role

@sportsczy wrote:Superstars of a certain magnitude rarely ever age gracefully... the bigger the ego, the worse it is. So it's just something we will need to deal with until CR leaves. Raul went through the same thing and we quickly shipped him out. Iker was more painful. I hope we do it sooner like with Raul so that there's dignity in it.

CR isn't a winger or wing striker any longer and he's not a CF. He's basically Wayne Rooney except he's far more fit and crushes the smaller opponents still

As far as our issue this game... pretty simple. We lost Carvajal and became exposed with Arbeloa. That cost us the game.

I also feel the both Kroos and Isco have fallen off significantly from their level of last season which doesn't help.

I just hope we get healthy and that Rafa adjusts. We're fine IF we fix the things that can be fixed. CR cannot so i just hope we're able to find a way to make it work. Bale is also still a work in progress that hasn't really been tested.

We are 2nd from the top of the table with only 1 point to catch up btw

What! We never shipped Raul out. Sure he had dropped in form, but he certainly didn't cost us anything and he didn't complain about being a rotating player. All he said he wanted to be considered important and after one season being a sub, he chose to leave (and take a look at how well he played afterwards, actually is doing quite well still in New York).

Iker was portero of year, before Mou played his motivation card. Again sure Iker had dropped in form, but last season he did not cost us and the way he was booed was disgraceful. Like Raul, he is playing just great and if you listen to him he is supportive of De Gea and Navas and Madrid.

Hierro though was bounced out and it is still questionable to this day whether his form has dropped or not.

And for the record, I don't think Ronaldo is finished. Sure there is plenty wrong with him, but he still is key to this team. None of Bale, Benz nor James have shown the goal capacity of Ronaldo. It's obvious he is having a rough season so far, but I wouldn't write him off yet.

Arbeloa has never been good on the ball in his entire Madrid career. What prompted him to try and dribble past Martinez only God knows. And the guy is as dirty as it gets. He didn't have a yellow so why didn't he just make a professional foul like he always does